Countdown: Seven
by KJ4
Summary: San Francisco, the next stop on Buddy Pine's "Comeback/Novakiller" tour. It's simple, kill the second Blazestone and her team, and move on. Unfortunately, he didn't plan on Bomber being in the area.


Disclaimer: As usual, don't own Incredibles...Pixar/Disney/Brad Bird does. Don't own Aberrant, White Wolf still does (and seems content to hold on to the rights and let the franchise die).

Author's Notes: Yeah, I know, this is kind of short, but I'm trying to keep all the Countdowns under 4000 words. Much easier to write. Will be going through it a couple times though to correct any major glaring errors. I'm trying to crank these out as fast as I can so I can start posting "War of Angels".

For those of you who are wondering who Bomber is, he's a character I created for my first story "Awkward Times, Interesting Times" and he is meant to be the likeable/comedy relief villain I like to beat up on. He's the son of "Bomb Voyage", and something of a slacker who is only following in his father's footsteps to pay for his endless "extreme sports" tours and his occasional college tuition. There is also a write up for him in "The Dicker Files".

* * *

_"Though no one has claimed responsibility for the attack on Pier 39, there has been speculation that the Teragen might have been involved. Details are sketchy at best, but according to eyewitnesses, an armored figure appeared and randomly started destroying store-fronts and killing any law enforcement officials who arrived on scene. When the Protectors, San Francisco's own Utopia sponsored nova team, arrived, they were systematically slaughtered in less than ten minutes. Only one member of the team survived and it is reported that they are in critical condition..."_

_-N!Channel News_

* * *

_**San Francisco, California**_

_**Golden Gate Bridge**_

Jean Paul Renard, also known as the nova mercenary/supervillain/slacker/pain-in-the-neck/but-still-an-all-around-cool-guy called Bomber, paused for a moment to take in the panoramic view of the San Francisco bay. He had to admit, despite the heavy shit-filled aroma of political correctness in the air, it was beautiful view. Then again, he was standing on top of a section of the Golden Gate Bridge, one hell of a vantage point...and also illegal...even for a nova. Already, traffic was slowing down below as drivers and pedestrians were looking up, probably wondering how a mad man got up there. He looked out at the water, then checked his palm-pilot computer which indicated that the camera he had placed on various parts of the bridge were working.

"Oh yeah," he smirked. "This is gonna' be so cool."

He tugged at the harness and straps to the pack he was wearing, making sure the pack was secure. Confident that everything was working, he picked up a digital camera and pointed it at himself as he turned it on.

"Jean-Paul here with another edition of 'Bomber's Bay'! Today, we're here in the beeeeeeaaaaaaautiful city of San Francisco, where political correctness is king...or queen...or both...really not sure, but that's not the point." He smiled knowing his comments would probably piss off some bloggers, but he didn't care. His site always got a lot of hits and controversy made him a star. "Anyway, as some of you know, I mentioned awhile back that I was designing a glider-pack. Well...here it is."

He posed in front of the camera.

"What we have here is a light-weight collapsible eufibreglass frame with eufibre fabric which makes the thing fairly durable." He then paused dramatically and lowered his voice as he brought the camera a little closer. "Don't ask where I got the materials...you really don't want to know."

He picked up a helmet and put it on. "As you can see, I've also got a small mini-cam mounted on the helmet which we're going to switch to when I dive off the bridge." Sirens and flashing lights caught his attention and he smiled again as he saw several emergency response vehicles make their way along the bridge. "Well, it looks like the emergency crews arrived to prevent me from doing this...so...I guess it's time to do this. If this works, we'll be taking a nice flight across the bay. If it doesn't...well...I'll end up in the bay and you might a look at the local marine life."

He turned off the camera and placed it in a pocket, then he reached up and activated the helmet cam. "Okay...here we go!" He gave laughed as a local news helicopter flew overhead and gave them a thumbs up before taking a running leap off the bridge.

"Baaaaaaaaaaaaaanzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

For a moment, time seemed to freeze for Jean. It was the kind of moment, that if it were anyone else, they would probably see their own life flash before their eyes as they fell to their death. The adrenaline would rush through the body, the heart would pound, and everything would seem to be going in slow motion as their mind would try to come to grips with the fact that their life would end right after that moment. For most people, it would be one last moment of terror. However, Jean loved those moments, he wished he could make them stretch out forever. Of course, being a nova with the ability of massive regeneration did kill the fear factor of possibly dying, but it didn't kill the adrenaline rush.

Of course, there was the possibility of the glider-pack failing, which meant he would probably break some bones as he slammed into the bay. And then he would have to endure that excruciating pain as the bones regenerated, but at least it was quick. His only real concern was hoping there weren't any sharks in the area...growing limbs back took longer and it was very painful.

But none of that mattered at this moment...nothing did, except for that moment of freedom he felt...that almost peaceful bliss, which was shattered by one single thought.

_Hmmm...I wonder how many hits my site is going to get from this...DAMMIT!!!_

Reality suddenly re-asserted itself back into real-time, ending Jean's "perfect moment", as the pack suddenly exploded to deploy a pair of stabilized wings. He quickly pulled both cords on the harness and his fall became a controlled dive which he pulled out of with only a couple feet between him and the water.

"YES!" he screamed. "It works!" He was still laughing as a wind current carried him back up in the air. Using the cords on the harness, he had the glider take him further out from the bridge and back towards the mainland. He passed over a boatload of tourists and nodded at them as they took pictures.

He had the glider continue to climb before leveling out at a decent altitude. "As you can see," he said, talking louder so the camera's mic could pick up his voice over the background noise from the wind, "I'm out here over the bay....and I got one hell of a view. As you can see, Ghirarhelli Square is over there, Pier 39 is over there, Alcatraz Island is off over here and-"

An explosion cut him off as part of Pier 39 erupted in flames, flinging debris into bay and up in the air.

"What the hell!?!"

* * * * *

**_Pier 39_**

Tanya Mitchell, also known as the heroine Blazestone, watched helplessly as her teammate, a super-strong nova called Rhino, was slammed repeatedly into the ground by the blue energy field that bathed him like a cocoon. The blue field was being projected by one of two matching gauntlets their unknown enemy wore on each arm of some sort of light powered armor. There was a sickening crunch when Rhino was impaled on a piece of exposed I-beam from one the damaged buildings.

"Bobby!" she screamed as she watched her friend and teammate convulse one last time before going completely limp. She blasted away the rest of the rubble she was half-buried under and then sent a stream of molten lava jetting towards her target. She never let loose like this before, not in a public area like this, preferring to keep use fireballs because they tended to do less damage, but this was an act of desperation.

Ten minutes ago, things were different. She, Rhino, Whirlwind, Rave, and Stormer had responded to calls that a madman was threatening to blow up Pier 39 if the Protectors didn't show. This point was emphasized when the armored mad-man used some sort of advanced technology to destroy the SWAT team and massacre most of the police officers who were trying to contain the situation. It was obvious the man was using banned technology that had been weaponized, and the Protectors, being a Utopia sponsored team, were authorized to use whatever force necessary to bring the unknown down.

Ten minutes ago, Tanya's friends were alive and well...and now, she was the only one left. Whirlwind was the first to fall, ripped in half by that weird glowing blue energy field the armored man was wielding. Rave and Stormer were shocked by what they saw, they stood there and were mowed down by a hail of metal from the rail-weapon the man carried with him. Rave had become a bloody smear, while Stormer's legs were ripped out from under her as she moved too late to take cover.

Tanya managed to knock the rail-gun out of the man's hands with hail of fireballs, but he fired a burst of that funky blue energy at her at blew out a portion of a building and buried her in the debris. Rhino managed to get a few shots on the man, who staggered from the blows delivered by the human behemoth, but it was apparent there was some sort of force-field that protected him from being pounded into a paste by the angry nova. Rhino continued to pound away on the other man, and it looked like he had the upper hand when he forced the other to drop to one knee.

Then the bastard lashed out with that energy field again and tossed the larger nova around like a rag-doll, laughing like a maniac before impaling him on that I-Beam while Tanya tried to dig herself out of the debris.

The armored man deflected the blast of magma, causing it to splatter everywhere, setting more fires wherever the lava landed. "Damn," he laughed at her. "Your mother was never that reckless."

Her fear and despair vanished as a wave of anger washed over her when the man talked about her dead mother. She unleashed another wave of magma at him, but he went air-borne, dodging the magma. She tried to track his movement, but felt something grab her and yank her up in the air. That was when she realized in horror that she was now bathed in that same blue energy. Then she screamed as she felt something burn throughout her body...as if she were being electrocuted.

"Well, well, well," the stranger said as he tapped a button on one of his gauntlets. The pain immediately stopped, but Tanya's body was so numb she couldn't move. "What's the matter, honey, nervous system not working right? Don't worry, it's only temporary...not that it matters, you'll be dead soon enough."

With a gesture from his right arm, Tanya was thrown across a walkway and into another storefront. She managed to roll with the impact, but she heard a snap and felt a sharp pain in her left arm. When she tried to push herself up, she felt more pain...confirming that it was broken.

The armored man landed in front of the building, shaking his head as he stooped to pick up the rail-gun he had dropped earlier, the mid-afternoon sun giving his visored helmet a malicious gleam. "You know, I killed the first Blazestone," he said as he stepped through the remains of the storefront. "And I prefer supers to stay dead after I kill them...but hey...if you want to follow in Mommy's footsteps...I'm more than willing to oblige you."

"Who-who are you?" Tanya managed to gasp.

The man suddenly stopped. "What?" He actually sounded upset by the question. "You don't know who I am? I killed your mother."

Tanya's eyes widened when she realized what he was saying. "No," she said, shaking her head. "You're dead." Then rage and grief surged through her again. "You can't be alive, you're dead!" she screamed as she lashed out with her good arm and sent a wave of lava that slammed into the armored man and knocked him through a building and into the bay.

She laid there on the ground for a couple minutes, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Helllloooooo," she heard someone call out. "Anybody there?" She heard someone making their way through the rubble toward her. The first thing she saw was a black helmet and she freaked out.

"Stay Away!" she screamed as she shot several fireballs at the newcomer who immediately dodged.

"Whoa!" The newcomer screamed as he dove for cover. "Ceasefire!"

Before Tanya could react, he was already next to her. She could see that he was wearing street-clothes, what looked like some sort of climbing harness, and a motorcycle helmet with a small camera on the side. It wasn't the armored man her team was fighting.

"No," she whimpered as he knelt down next to her. "Stay away."

"Like hell, lady!" The man quickly looked her over and gently touched her injured arm, causing her to cry out. "Oh fuck, definitely broken in two places....feels like you got a couple broken ribs."

"Who are you?" she asked as the man pulled off his helmet, revealing a young man with sandy brown hair in his mid-twenties. She would have thought of him as hot if she swung that way.

"My name's Jean-Paul...but just call me Jean." He smiled at her. "But you can call me when you get out of the hospital okay."

"Sorry," she half-choked out. "You don't have the right plumbing."

Jean frowned at her. "Dammit, why is it that the really hot ones are lesbians? Then again, this IS San Francisco." He shook his head. "Fine, just let me take you out for a cup of coffee when this is over." He paused for a moment as he considered his options. "Look, if this were a normal situation, I'd just call 911 and not move you, but that's not an option. I'm going to have to carry you out, okay?"

She nodded her consent. "Have...to...get...out of here," she gasped.

"Yeah, yeah," Jean said as he started to pick her up. "No pressure here. By the way, who did thi"

Several metallic needles slammed into Jean's shoulder, knocking him several feet away even as the projectiles shredded his shoulder.

* * * * *

Buddy Pine watched as Blazestone's would-be savior landed in a heap twenty feet away. The HUD in his helmet was still flickering from the damage he took from the magma blast that knocked him into the bay, but his ZP field had shielded him from most of the damage. His body-armor was scorched in some places, but still intact. Unfortunately, his ZP field was still recharging. Thankfully, his rail gun was still working.

"That would be me," he said to the corpse of the stranger who was stupid enough to try and play hero. He then turned his attention back to Blazestone. "Now, where were we...oh yeah...we were talking about tradition. Your mommy was a super, I killed her, you follow in her footsteps, I kill you...fairly simple logic." He laughed as Blazestone tried to conjure up another attack, but was only able to generate a tiny ball of flame. "Well...it was a short run...and you're a sad disappointment to your mother's memory."

He raised the rail-gun. "If it makes you feel better, you and your team will make an excellent sales gimmick during my presentations." He was about to pull the trigger when a gleaming silver ball suddenly hit his rail-gun and attached itself to the weapon. "Huh? What the hell..." was all he got out before the small ball exploded, destroying his weapon and knocking him to the ground.

He struggled to his feet and was rewarded with a piece of rubble slamming into the visor of his helmet, shattering the HUD display inside and momentarily blinding him.

"Okay, asshole," he heard someone say before a solid kick hit him in the mid-section. "That fucking hurt!"

The blow didn't do any damage, but there was enough strength behind it to send Buddy staggering back. He ripped off his helmet so he could see who he was fighting, then stopped cold as he recognized the guy he had shot with the rail-gun only a minute ago. "Whoa...hold on...I cored your ass, you should be dead."

The other man twirled a pipe in his hand and shrugged. "Yeah, you did. I got better, now I'm pissed." He charged forward, landing a solid blow to Buddy's gut and then following it up with a shot to the face that would have connected had the Zero-Point field not kicked back on. Instead, the pipe stopped just millimeters from Buddy's jaw. To Buddy's surprise, the man just shook his head. "Aw man...now that's kind of cool...not fair, but still cool."

Buddy smiled at him. "Glad you like it," he sneered as he had the field grab the other man and start slamming him through walls, against the ceiling, and finally into the floor, leaving the man in a crumpled heap. "Ouch," he said. "Looks like you broke a bunch of bones...lets see you get up from-"

A beeping sound at his feet interrupted him and made him look down. His eyes widened as he saw two more tiny silver balls sitting there. "Son of a bitch!" he screamed before the explosion knocked him off his feet and sent him flying back into the bay again. Luckily, his boot-jets were still operational and kicked into full power as he burst out of the water.

"Okay, you little shit!" he snarled at the man who, much to Buddy's surprise, was already back on his feet. "So you can heal really fast, let's see if you can regrow organs that are ripped out of you." He pointed pointed both gauntlets at the man and fired, alternating the frequency of the waves so they would rip the man into multiple pieces. Instead, both gauntlets sparked and one of them went completely dead.

"Dammit!" he whined. "Not now." Then the gauntlet flared to life and fired a large blue burst of zero point energy that hit the building, bringing it down on top of the man and the injured Blazestone, burying them alive. He took a moment to survey the damage and shrugged. "Well...not exactly what I wanted, but I guess that will do for now."

He was tempted to finish the job, but the approaching sirens and helicopters made him decide it was probably time to go before people got a good look at him. He checked the power-levels on his one functioning gauntlet which read only thirty-five percent power. He sighed, then punched in a command which had the zero-point field bend the light around him, making him invisible, and took off. While he wasn't too happy with the results, he was confident the fact he had destroyed an entire team of novas would establish his reputation with his prospective clients.

On the other hand, he was certain that Blazestone couldn't survive that. As for the other nova who showed...well...if the bastard survived that, he'd just need a bigger gun next time.

* * * * *

As a paramedic, Alicia Carter had seen a lot of things in the last two years while working around the Bay Area. She had treated gunshot wounds, stabbings, burns, and other injuries. She had been in all sorts of emergency situations, but nothing like this.

Pier 39, one of San Francisco's more popular tourist attractions, had been turned into a war zone. All around her, people were injured and dying as she and several other emergency workers tried to treat the injured. She had never seen so many ambulances and firetrucks all at once. Two minutes after she and her partner, Lyle Morris, arrived on-scene, they were both wearing dust-masks and helping others dig through the rubble.

As she made her way through the area, she saw what appeared to be some sort of hang-glider lying on the ground, fabric shredded, but frame still intact.

_Now that's odd...what kind of store sells a hang-glider at Pier 39? Must have been part of a display._

"Hey, we got something," Lyle called out.

Alicia ran over to where Lyle was digging through a pile of debris and started to go through the pile of bricks, pipe, and mortar. Several other workers joined them and, a few minutes later, they found a man's body, his neck bent sharply at a severe angle and his limbs broken....another casualty. A few seconds after that, they realized he was covering the body of a young woman...and she was alive!

"Holy shit," she heard one of the workers mutter. "That's Blazestone...one of the Protectors."

"Then who's this guy?" asked one of the others as they gently lifted the dead man's body and set it aside.

"I dunno', just some nobody."

Alicia wanted to smack that worker. It was obvious to her that the dead man had shielded Blazestone's body with his own. "Have some respect," she snapped. "He probably saved her life."

"Whatever," the worker said with a shrug. "We better get her to a hospital. We'll deal with the dead guy later."

Suddenly, the "dead guy" in question twitched violently on the ground and sickening crunches could be heard as his neck and broken limbs snapped back into position. Then he suddenly sat up and screamed.

"THAT REALLY FUCKING HURT!"

To everyone's amazement, the corpse then stumbled back to his feet, then staggered a few more steps. He tilted his neck sharply to the right until another audible crack was hear. "Ow," he muttered. Then he stretched his arms out and back until more sickening cracks were heard. "Ow...again."

Alicia and the others stood there, dumbfounded, as the dead guy...no longer dead...opened and closed his hands. After taking a few seconds, Alicia was able to find her voice. "Sir, are all right?"

"No," the man snapped, "I'm not all right. Some fucker dropped a building on me, I hate when that happens!" He then turned to the one worker who had simply dismissed him as a corpse and raised a finger at him. "As for you," he said as he took a couple of steps forward. "You have got to be the worst emergency worker...ever! As soon as I'm fully back together, I'm going to beat the shit out of you." Then he stumbled a few steps and dropped to his knees. "I'm going to beat the shit out of you...as soon as the world stops spinning."

He collapsed to the ground, unconscious, oblivious to the speechless emergency workers who stood there for several seconds, still in shock at seeing a "dead man" wake up in front of them.

"Well," Alicia finally said. "Now there's something you don't see every day."


End file.
